By William Patrick Leonard. Parents and students assessing tertiary institution options undertake a significant challenge. When their consideration includes foreign institutions, the process becomes significantly more challenging. A foreign degree may lead to life-changing opportunities and often drastically higher expenses.
These searchers may rely on the personal experience of family members and friends, augmented by institutional reputation assessments offered by the major ranking systems: QS, Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher Education. Those considering US institutions are also likely to consult US News’ Best Colleges.
Family and friends consultation, which is based on trust, is second only to first-hand experience. The responders’ familiarity with the unique characteristics of both the prospective student and the institution(s) under consideration may be helpful in isolating the best fit. More...

By Karen MacGregor, Global Editor. Professor Max Price has led Africa's top-ranked university for four years. The University of Cape Town's vision is to be 'Afropolitan' and it is also highly international, with nearly 20% of students and 25% of academics from outside South Africa. Price told University World News what the institution is doing right.
The ‘Afropolitan’ idea has become the hallmark of Price’s leadership, and is the concept framing the university’s development drive into the future, even though how it would transpire was entirely unclear in the early years.
The ‘Afro’, he explained, is obviously a reference to the university’s focus on the continent. ‘Politan’ signifies “that it is not a retrospective look, a sort of naive subsidy economy, safari economy view of the continent, but rather a cosmopolitan and metropolitan view of a continent that is developing fast and is involved with the future". More...

By Nicola Jenvey. South Africa has a glaring disparity between its higher education system and the workplace, an issue that can only further harm an economy struggling to absorb its youth and grow in line with its BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – trading bloc partners.
Many graduates cannot find employment – tragically, in an economy facing major problems relating to scarce skills. In short, there is a mismatch between the graduates produced and the skills required to shift South Africa into the next economic gear.
South African Graduates Development Association (SAGDA) CEO Thamsanqa Maqubela said graduate unemployment – defined as that among people with a minimum three-year academic or vocational qualification – had escalated since the global economic recession.
Depending on which statistics are considered, South Africa has between 255,000 (Statistics South Africa Labour Force Survey 2009) and 600,000 (Adcorp labour market analyst Loane Sharp 2011) unemployed graduates. More...

By Jane Marshall. France’s Higher Education and Research Minister Geneviève Fioraso has blocked the appointment of a provisional director of the elite Institute of Political Science, known as Sciences Po.
Her action followed the official publication on Thursday of a damning report by the Cour des Comptes – the state auditor – on the financial management of the institute, and the auditor’s decision to refer matters to the state Budget and Finance Disciplinary Court.
The provisional report was leaked in October to the newspaper Le Monde. At that time Fioraso pointed out that the findings were provisional and said she would wait for the definitive version before taking any decisions or action. More...

By Asle Rønning. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing positive economic development, and there is increasing understanding of the important contributions universities have to make if African societies are to achieve the next stages of development.
So said Professor Nico Cloete, director of the Centre for Higher Education Transformation in Cape Town, at a senimar on “Research and Development” held in Oslo earlier this month and convened by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the Norwegian Research Council.
The conference was among efforts to support researchers in developing countries and to enhance knowledge-based development, and asked the basic question: Will more research lead to development and poverty reduction?
Cloete played an important role in the design of a new higher education policy in post-apartheid South Africa and currently leads the HERANA – Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa – programme, which includes a research project in eight African countries on the importance of universities for development. More...

By Gilbert Nganga. The East African Community's five member countries have approved a key bill seeking to harmonise and standardise their university education systems, ending three years of haggling.
Earlier this month education ministers from the five nations – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda – meeting in the Rwandan capital Kigali, approved the Inter University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) Bill 2012.
It essentially removes the barrier that was blocking the region from rolling out a system that will allow students access to learning and mobility across East Africa.
The countries have been tussling over several provisions in the bill since its first version was released in 2009. More...

By Erin Millar. Universities need to do a better job of equipping young people to succeed in the 21st century, Andreas Schleicher, deputy director for education at the OECD, argued at the recent World Innovation Summit for Education, or WISE, in Doha, Qatar.
“More than ever before, skills drive our economies and they transform people’s lives,” he said. “But more education doesn’t automatically translate into better skills and better lives.”
Schleicher’s comments summarised a major theme that arose throughout the summit: how must the fundamentals of education change to address the fast-shifting needs of the globalised world with its daunting, complex problems? More...

By Alan Osborn. It’s no longer enough to leave university with a degree – even a masters – at least not in the European Union (EU). Successful graduates of the future must have the skills that equip them for the job market of the modern age, says a European Commission strategy paper released last Tuesday.
That may mean entrepreneurial talents, a sense of initiative and a good grasp of other languages on top of all else.
The European Commission claims its new strategy paper, Rethinking Education, represents “a fundamental shift in education”, with more focus on learning outcomes. More...

By Geoff Maslen. Efforts by the Australian government to make studying in Australia more attractive to foreign students appear to have boosted unemployment rates among the nation’s young people, according to a new report. The report says tens of thousands of foreign students are successfully applying for different visas at the end of their courses so they can stay and work in Australia, in the hope of becoming permanent residents.
But the rapidly rising number of temporary migrants, including students, tourists and working holidaymakers, is causing increasing unemployment among young Australians. A study by Dr Bob Birrell and Dr Ernest Healy of the centre for population and urban research at Monash University in Melbourne has found that the Australian-born workforce grew by just 58,000 in the 12 months to August whereas at least 100,000 migrants arrived in the course of the year and found employment. More...